Making Unexpected Friends in Cupertino

A Serendipitious Encounter on the Cal Train

The other day, I befriended a really cute Taiwanese couple (43M/40F) on my way home from San Francisco after a Giants game. The boyfriend is a Senior Hardware Engineer at Apple, and his girlfriend teaches Chinese to 1st graders in Utah. If feels strange to call them “BF/GF”, but they’ve actually only been dating for a couple years, and they talk to each other (and to me) like they're still in their 20s. For about two hours riding the Cal Train, we bonded pretty well over everything including family backgrounds, work shenanigans, and “Westworld”/“Stranger Things”. They also knew all the best asian food and boba places in Bay Area, so despite the generation gap, they are the best kind of friends to have.

After the Cal Train, they decided to not only drive me home, but also take me to a place called “Meet Fresh” at 11:30 PM at night, which sells a Taiwanese dessert called “Taro Ball” (Fig 1). Was pretty good. Chewy, not too sweet, and overall refreshing on a hot summer night. When their desserts came out for them, I saw the cutest thing happen. He hovered over both bowls of Taro Balls, and carefully inspected the size of each bean in each bowl (Fig 2). Puzzled, when his GF asked what the heck he was doing, he said, “I’m trying to find the bowl with the bigger beans for you, because I know it’s easier for you to chew and you often complain about having smaller beans.” From her expression, I think he won huge points in her mind that night (Fig 3). He did extremely well.

Overall, all I have to reflect on is that Taiwanese food is pretty legit. Since this night, we go out about once a week because they want me to be more woke to Taiwanese food. Most interesting friends I did not expect to make this summer.